Someone Else
by Rannathalas
Summary: It's the fourth year of Hogwarts for Harry and the gang, when an exchange student from America is selected to stay at the Dursleys. (This is not like the other exchange student fics, I swear)
1. Spitting Morons

Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Harry Potter. (I wish I did, though^.^)  
  
Disclaimer 2: I also don't own any of the races I will be mentioning in this chap. (sigh)  
  
Claimer: Cat is MINE! MINEY MINE MINE!!! Please get my permission before ever using her! WATASHI NO DESU!!! (hee hee) sorry bout that.  
  
A.N. Alright, people, this is my very first *attempt* at a fic. (Notice: attempt.) I've been thinking up this story *forever*! I'm probably going to end up deleting this version and putting up a different one. Unless. you people review and think I should continue. But, in any case, this is a fic of my messed up imagination and LOTS of books! ^_^ And so, ENJOY! (if you can) Oh Yeah. This fic takes place in the fourth year.  
  
Chap 1. Spitting Morons  
  
"Harry!" Petunia screamed up the stairs, "Get down here, NOW!"  
  
Harry Potter sighed as he put the stopper in his ink well and slid his Defense Against the Dark Arts book underneath his floorboards. He got up and walked down the stairs, dragging his feet the entire way. 'What now?' Harry thought as he reached the living room.  
  
Dudley, Vernon, and Petunia were all sitting on the couch in a neat little row, just staring at him. "What do you want?" Harry said a bit sourly- he had been up until one-in-the-morning doing his homework.  
  
"Harry," Vernon said, his mustache bristling like a little porcupine on his lip (A.N.: poor porcupine!), "tomorrow an exchange student from America will be coming. She will be staying here until September 1, and then she will proceed to a boarding school somewhere in London."  
  
"And this concerns me because."  
  
"Absolutely NO funny business, NO talk of this strange school of yours, and DEFFINETLY NO MAGIC!!!" Vernon yelled, spittle flying in all directions. Harry shuddered in disgust, carefully wiping spit off his cheek. "Ok, ok. I get the point. I'll gladly disappear into my room for the rest of the week. Can I go back-"  
  
Harry was unable to finish as Vernon, not wanting Harry to have the last word, commanded him to "LEAVE, NOW!" (A.N. and never come back! ^;^ (Lord of the Rings))  
  
The next day, Harry awoke to the sounds of Aunt Petunia slamming something hard against his door, most probably the frying pan, and screaming for him to get up. Harry just groaned and rolled over. He was used to this. Eventually, she would shut up and go away, assuming he had followed her orders. 'Yeah, right' Harry thought as the banging deceased and footsteps could be heard retreating from his room. His eyelids soon began to droop.  
  
The next thing he knew, the door was open and Vernon was shaking him awake. "Get up you lazy lout!" Vernon yelled in his ear. Harry sat up immediately, lost his bearings as Vernon stepped away, and fell off his bed.  
  
"I expect you at the breakfast table in one minute," Vernon stated shortly as he departed from the room. Harry groaned as he rubbed tender spot swelling on the side of his head. 'Great. Now I have yet another lump on the side of my head. Though, this one isn't made of hair.' He shook his head, as if to shake the randomness out of his thoughts, and got up, wobbling a bit.  
  
He shrugged on the cloths that he had worn years before because they actually almost fit him. Dudley's size was really beginning to be a source of annoyance from Harry. A source of amusement, too. It takes Harry great control not to burst out laughing every time he sees his cousin, who had now reached the point of being wider than he was tall, wobbling past.  
  
Harry caught the smell of frying bacon and eggs wafting from the kitchen. His stomach rumbled as he walked in, seating himself at the table in his usual place: in the corner of the room as far away from his relatives as he could get.  
  
"In case you have forgotten, there will be an exchange student coming today."  
  
"I know," Harry snapped moodily. There was a good reason he had had a hard time waking up this morning: the Potion's essay. Harry absentmindedly sighed in despair as he thought of the arduous essay. He had spent hours and hours studying and taking notes until he finally realized that he was reading the fifth year assignment instead of the fourth. And he couldn't even use the essay he had written for next year because Snape changed the assignments yearly.  
  
His thoughts were interrupted by the annoying BUZZZZ of the doorbell 'Why can't we own one of those cute little tinkling doorbells?' he thought, annoyed, as All three of the other occupants of the room jumped up and rushed to the door. Harry got up and trudged along behind them. He was suspicious of any visitor invited by the Dursleys.  
  
"Hi! You're the Dursleys, no?" The girl at the door said, a strange accent lacing her speech. She had long silvery hair flooded with blue-green. Her skin was olive, and her eyes a strange shade of blue-green. She was wearing a black tank-top, which didn't quite meet her deep green cargo pants at her hips, the cargos' frayed edges touching the ground behind her booted feet.  
  
The fat guy with a bushy mustache stared at her clothing in distaste for a couple of moments. He finally realized that she had asked a question and, stuttering a bit, said, "Yes. What do you want?"  
  
"Umm. I'm the exchange student you offered to take in. You know... the one from America? My name's Cat," She said, starting to shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other as a fat boy stared at her from behind the doorway and a thin, shrewd looking woman glared at her muddy boots. 'What is *wrong* with these people?' Cat thought impatiently, 'this damned trunk weighs a ton!'  
  
"Oh!" Vernon exclaimed, finally getting the idea through his thick skull, "Come in, come in!"  
  
Cat walked in, looking at her new surroundings. The Dursleys seemed to have a VERY bad taste when it comes to interior design. She unconsciously wrinkled her nose at the thousands of pictures of what looked like a pig wearing a hat. She looked at Dudley and thought, 'My god, he STILL looks like a pig!'  
  
"I'm Mr. Dursley, this is Mrs. Dursley, and this is Duddley."  
  
'DUDLEY?! What kind of a name is that?!' Cat thought. She turned around to face the kitchen, expecting to see a bed for Dudley, who probably spends his entire day there, but instead saw a relatively thin, short boy with black hair, green eyes, and glasses.  
  
"Who's he?" Cat asked.  
  
"Oh. Him." Mr. Dursley said, obviously hating the kid, "That's Harry. Petunia's nephew."  
  
Cat gathered that Petunia was probably Mr. Dursley's wife, smiled at Harry, and said, "Hi, Harry! What's up?"  
  
Harry suppressed the urge to strangle her accent out of her and said, "Hi."  
  
Before she could continue the slightly one-sided conversation, Mrs. and Mr. Dursley herded her up the stairs to her new room, throwing her trunk at Harry to drag along behind them as best he could.  
  
  
  
A.N. I'm verry sorry that this chap is so short! I'll make the next one longer. It's just. I really want to update this while I still can. ^,^ 


	2. Dead Ducks and Catastrophic Heroism

Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Harry Potter. (I wish I did, though ^.^)  
  
Disclaimer 2: I also don't own any of the races I will be mentioning in this chap. (sigh)  
  
Claimer: Cat is MINE! MINEY MINE MINE!!! Please get my permission before ever using her! WATASHI NO DESU!!! (hee hee) sorry bout that.  
  
A.N. alright, I've moved my AN to the end of the chapter. Oh, and though this may annoy you a whole lot, I'm moving this to the fifth year 'cause I TRULY DON'T feel like screwing up the whole voldemort signal/ snape spy/ quidditch tournaments/ cedric death/ mad-eyed-moody and such stuff. It just doesn't work for me. SORRY!!! (Ducks as audience hurls various objects at her) ^.^0 SORRY!! (Bows as odd brick hurdles through the air where her head had just been. HEY!! _ )  
  
An hour later, Harry was still pulling things out of that one trunk and his arms were beginning to get tired. 'Dammit!' he muttered under his breathe, 'How big *is* this thing?!"  
  
Cat looked up from unpacking her bags, noticing that Harry was starting to droop in exhaustion. She smiled inwardly. 'Why doesn't he just *stop*?' she wondered, amused as he struggled to lift a calligraphy pen out of the trunk.  
  
"Hey, Harry?" Cat asked, in a sudden rescue-harry-from-slave-work mood, "Lets go get some drinks. It's not like I have to unpack everything before I go back to school."  
  
Harry smiled gratefully at her while racing towards the stairs in a sudden burst of speed Cat chased after him shouting, "Last one there's gotta buy the winner a soda!" They ran/fell, down the stairs. Their fun was abruptly ended by the huge, foul-smelling wall also known as Mr. Dursley.  
  
He somehow managed to glower down at the two teenagers gasping for breath in front of him. 'He can't be more than five-foot-eight!' Cat thought in exasperation, '*How* does he *do* that?'  
  
Vernon's stern visage was completely shattered as a black kitten leapt over his head and into Cat's arms where it sat, purring contentedly.  
  
"WHAT IS THAT BLOODY CAT DOING IN THIS HOUSE?!!!" Vernon yelled, as he recovered, his face a deep shade of crimson. Cat, completely unfazed stared back up at him and said calmly, "I have no idea. It's no kitten of mine!" While in truth she was wondering at the fact that his head looked like a giant cherry with a huge mustache.  
  
"DON'T YOU DARE GIVE ME THAT BLOODY LIE!! IT IS PRACTICALLY * IN LOVE* WITH YOU, DAMMIT!" Aunt Petunia, hearing the commotion from the other side of the house, rushed into the room. "Now Vernon," she said soothingly, drawing him away, "She's the guest. We never told her she couldn't have any pets. Now think." And her voice faded away as they walked out of the living room an into the kitchen across the hall.  
  
As soon as they were gone, Cat held the kitten in front of her face and said, "Dammit, Gwenuevar, I thought I told you to stay *outside*!  
  
The cat proceeded to let out a mixture of purrs and meows that somehow sounded suspicious. Cat, cradling the kitten, walked up the stairs towards her room nodding and answering to the cat as if she could understand every word, errr. meow, the cat made.  
  
"Well, you could at least have snuck into my room instead of barging in the front door and jumping on the fat man's head!' ~Purr meow meows me purr ow~ "Well why didn't you ask the other cats where my room."  
  
Their voices faded and Harry walked up the stairs after them and entered his room. 'I should probably work on my homework now, before Vernon's head explodes and destroys the entire house.' Harry thought as he sat down on his bed, sorting out exactly what had just happened. The lack of sleep he had been getting had begun to fog his mind. Realizing this, harry abandoned the dangerous quest he had been about to undertake, (i.e. his homework), and fell asleep.  
  
A while later.  
  
Harry was woken by an irate Hedwig pecking at his ear. "What is it now?" He mumbled distractedly, clinging to consciousness, while at the same time shoving it away with the carelessness only granted to those half asleep, or exclusively idiotic.  
  
But as Hedwig's pecks grew ever painful and the unusually high-pitched shrieking of a flying owl became evident, Harry was forced to abandon his dreams of more than eight hours of sleep in a night, every night, and face the cold reality of day.  
  
He opened his eyes to see a pathetically teeny owl streaking towards him with a letter that seemed ridiculously large compared to its messenger. "Pig" he groaned, shaking the fuzziness out of his head. The creature named crashed into his sheets where it promptly got lost and started thrashing around tangling itself even more.  
  
Harry stared for a few seconds at the pitiful sight before realizing that he probably should help. He shook his head as he untangled the mass of owl, paper, and cloth and untied the parchment from the still revoltingly optimistic owl's talons.  
  
Dear Harry,  
  
Since you need to get your school supplies, how bout we pick you up sometime tomorrow? No need to ask your aunt and uncle, though I'm telling Dad and Mum that you did, anyway, for their own sake. Fred, George, and Ginny are coming, too. I heard that there's an exchange student from America at your house! What's she like? Is she weird or just plain stupid? I heard those damn Americans struck up the war with Iraq for oil! Is that true? Or is it all just rumor? Just curious! Seeya tomorrow,  
  
Ron Weasley  
  
He wrote a letter back, purposefully making it short to laugh at Ron and also for the sake of the cute, but slightly annoying feathered thing streaking around his head. He looked forward to the trip out of the house, knowing that Vernon's and Petunia's nerves were stretched almost to the breaking point. Harry's one regret was leaving poor Cat alone to fight the idiots by herself.  
  
Harry shook his head, slightly amused at Ron's eager inquiring, while curious himself. Just what WAS that stupid war for, anyway? Well, he wasn't going to ask her. He'd leave that to Fred and George. Harry chuckled to himself. He couldn't wait to see THAT meeting! (A.N. heh heh heh)  
  
"Dinner!" Aunt Petunia shrieked in her nasal voice up the stairs. Harry shook his head vigorously. Had he really been asleep that long? He walked down the stairs, revived from his prior daze by the sleep and the thing he has to look forward to tomorrow.  
  
Cat was already downstairs and, from the look on Vernon and Petunia's faces, the kitten was gone. Harry looked at Cat questioningly. Cat smiled back, unfazed. 'Ok,' Harry thought 'the cat's alright, then.' He looked for a place and noticed that his usual place had been taken by Dudley, and Cat was pushed almost to the edge of that side of the table by his bulk. When she noticed that Harry had seen her predicament, she looked at him straight in the eye with the HELP-ME-DAMN-IT! look.  
  
Cat prov: why is the fat bastard STARING at me?! Oh. Oh.. CRAP! What am I gonna do NOW?! The asshole has a crush on me! DAMN!!!!!!!!!  
  
Harry was quite amused by her obvious distress, but after Dudley leaned closer to her and she froze in horror, Harry took pity on her. He picked up the pitcher of orange juice on the table and walked toward the only empty place. As he passed Cat, he pretended to trip and spilled the pitcher of juice all over her.  
  
Cat leapt into the air with a shriek, playing along with the act.  
  
"MY CLOTHES!" She wimpered convincingly, holding out her arms as she dripped all over the floor.  
  
"My HAIR!!!" Her eyes swelled with tears and she started sobbing. However, when she turned to Harry in mock anger, she gave him a look filled to the brim with gratitude.  
  
'Damn, she can act. I actually thought for a second there that she really was upset!'  
  
"HOW COULD YOU?!" she screamed, tears pouring from her eyes.  
  
Dudley got all in a huff and might have attacked Harry had he not been firmly stuck in-between the arms of Harry's chair. (Dudley's usual chair didn't have arms exactly for this reason) Even so he struggled mightily and Harry thought he heard a piece of wood in the chair break.  
  
'Maybe this wasn't such a great idea,' Harry thought nervously as Every Dursley in the residence worked themselves up into a fairly catastophic attitude. Cat was starting to feel the exact same sentiments. 'God, these people are tense!'  
  
Petunia leapt up and started trying to calm the "hysterical" American teenager, who, with her back turned to Mrs. Dursley, was rolling her eyes at Harry.  
  
"Now, now, dear. This isn't anything a bit of washing won't fix. Calm down, we'll get you fixed up immediately." her voice and Cat's sobs faded away as they left the room and climbed up the stairs.  
  
Harry stood there, fidgeting, as Vernon worked on getting Dudley out of the chair. The moment Vernon's back had turned, Harry fled the scene and made for his room.  
  
A half an hour later, Cat was shiny-clean and absolutely content except for the horrible guilt stabbing at her stomach. 'CRAP! Harry's gonna get in SOO much trouble for this! Maybe I overdid it. (A.N. A brave sacrifice towards the greater good! bwahahaha) Hmm. I should probably go talk to him. Make sure he's not pissed off at me or anything. You never know with these people'  
  
So Cat left on the great quest, cheer-up-harry-who-sacrificed-himself-for- you-the-poor-guy. She made sure that the hall was empty before leaving her room,( don't want to run into Dudley, now, do we? ^.^0 ), and tip-toed down the hallway. She arrived at his door and knocked timidly, still cautious of a pissed-off Harry. Harry opened the door and saw the timid, braced-for-an- explosion look on Cat's face and started cracking up. Cat waited a few moments to make sure this wasn't the hysterics of one gone mad, then relaxed and joined in , realizing how stupid she probably looked.  
  
"Come on in."  
  
Cat walked in and looked around the room, glance straying on the giant birdcage in the corner. "What's that?" she asked pointing.  
  
"Hm? Oh that. That's my old bird's cage," Harry had made this up before dinner, knowing she'd see his room sometime. "She died last week. I'm keeping it so that I can get another one and partly in reverence towards her." Hedwig was delivering a letter to Sirius, so Harry didn't expect her back for a while. The story was safe for now.  
  
Cat nodded, thinking to herself, 'there's something fishy about that story. But why would he lie about a freaking BIRD CAGE?!' His room was pretty plain otherwise. Judging from what she was seeing, he was some sort of obsessive neat freak or something. Sure, his bed was unmade and all, but there weren't any papers or notebooks or even schoolbooks lying around when she knew for a fact that he'd been doing a lot of homework. You could see it at breakfast when he was kind of dead-looking and obviously sleep- deprived.  
  
Oh, well. It wasn't her job to figure out the mysteries of this strange child. Besides, if she really got curious, it was better to investigate when he WASN'T there.  
  
Harry watched her examination of his room nervously. What if he forgot to hide something that would give away his magic to her. Oh, god, the Dursleys would MURDER him! He suppressed a shudder. He didn't want to go through Aunt Marge again.  
  
Cat sat down on his bed, stretching her legs. "So, what school do you go to?" "Bernon's Disciplinary School for Troubled Boys." Harry recited in monotone, hoping he got it right. He couldn't quite remember the exact name. "Cat stared at him a bit before finally saying, "You know something? You don't look much like a violent, troubled child. In fact, I don't think that school even exists. At least, not around here, it doesn't." "How would you know?' Harry asked, starting to get worried. "Well, I got a list of all the schools around here so that I could see what type of kids I was gonna be hanging with and know what schools they might go to. I got a list, just for the hell of it, of all the boarding schools in England and that was NOT one of them. The name's too strange to forget."  
  
The school they picked wasn't even REAL?! Harry went silent, mentally cursing the Dursleys in every language he knew how. This was quite a few after spending the last bit of last summer with the Weasleys, not to mention the very knowledgeable friends he had at Hogwarts. Kids came to Hogwarts from as far as Japan to as close as London, itself. Come to think of it, there was no apparent reason that kids from America never came. He had never really wondered about it thinking that the American kids just were way too strange, but Cat wasn't that bad at all. Different, sure, but not bizarrely so. She acted almost like one of the Weasleys, in fact. But, in any case, Cat was now staring curiously at Harry, obviously waiting for his reply. He had to think and quickly. (A.N. Haiyaku!)  
  
"Really? Maybe they didn't include the schools for ' disturbed children.'"  
  
Cat was doubtful of his honesty; they had made a point of showing her those kinds of schools, but let it slide. She knew that she wasn't going to get a straight answer from him yet and, more importantly, she could hear Petunia's footsteps on the stairs. That was not good. She had to keep up the whole 'innocent teenager' mask or they'd start to get mean. It had happened that way the last time she had been an exchange student. She looked at Harry, gesturing towards the stairs while she inched toward his door. Harry blinked and she was on the other side of the hallway moving swiftly through the shadows towards her room.  
  
Harry shook his head. He knew she hadn't bought his story; could you blame her?, but was glad she didn't ask any further into it. He got ready to do his homework. Tonight was going to be a long one. He wanted to get the rest of his homework finished before he went with the Weasleys, as it would be most likely that he'd go to their house afterwards and stay there for the rest of the summer. He was glad that he'd be able to escape the Dursleys; the hole orange juice incident had obviously pissed them off. Harry yawned, pulling out his quill, ink, and parchment. Yes, tonight was going to be very long, indeed.  
  
A.N. Continued.. Some people were wondering what the pairings are. (Actually, one person was wondering and a couple friends from school, but that's ok! ^,^) To tell the truth, I have absolutely NO IDEA who's gonna be paired with who. This fic has turned out very different than I thought it would, and I'm pretty sure that the first people I thought would pair up won't. It might even be that Cat doesn't pair up with anybody, but other already-known characters might. (sigh) it's kinda pathetic. * I * don't even know where this fic is going. -_-* OH WELL! ^.^ It's about midnight and I'm just about ready to kill the next person who walks into this room and tells me to get off the computer. Why can't they just go find their own computer! This is mine! Miney mine mine!!! ^O^ *Ahem* *Cough*tomuchsugar*cough*  
  
What will happen next? Will Vernon finally explode, or will he merely crack? Will poor Cat be killed and mangled by the time Harry comes back again after school? How will Fred and George react to meeting an American (prat)? 


End file.
